RAINBOW

His laughter was almost indistinguishable from tears. Like others who interviewed him, I watched him racked by strange sobs when recounting droll stories of absent friends—the poet John Betjeman, the painter Patrick Caulfield, or the writer Susan Sontag (“I miss her terribly”). The writer Julian Barnes was fondly referred to as “Mr Flaubert”. Former Tate director Nicholas Serota noted Hodgkin’s emotions were “very close to the surface”; Bruce Chatwin, another friend and novelist, said his smile could “captivate or freeze”. I was mortified when I asked if at 80 he felt doing anything other than painting was “wasting his true calling” and he replied: “Yes, but I wouldn’t put it as pompously as that.”